Cushions and other cushionlike items such as pillows containing kapok, fibre, cotton, down, wool, buckwheat-chaff, sponge and the like are well known. However, such an item is generally accompanied by certain disadvantages such as absorbing and retaining moisture from the exterior to become too wet and warm after a long period of use, in the case of a pillow, to keep the user's head cool enough to ensure an easy and comfortable sleep, and providing an unclean condition that can encourage germs and worms to proliferate. In order to eliminate these and other disadvantages, a pillow or a cushion using a mesh bag as a case and a number of small and short cylindrical plastic elements as stuffing has been proposed. A pillow or a similar item having such a construction generally has a good airing function and can meet the requirements of cooling the head and of having a height adjustability to provide ease and comfort of users. While such items have an advantage for providing comfort of easy and good sleep, they do not have any noticeable therapeutic effects of promoting blood circulation and curing kinks and sore muscles, effects similar to those that can be brought forth by finger pressure therapy and other physical therapeutic measures applicable to muscles and blood circulation.
A driver who has been driving an automobile for a long period of time can have a heavy fatigue and sore muscles and sometimes can fall in a heavy drowsiness, which will force him or her to pull in a drive-inn for rest and to spend some time until he or she can recover and resume driving to head for the destination. It would be very advantageous for an automobile driver if his or her car is equipped with a seat pad having the therapeutic effects of physically maintaining the driver's posture in the correct position, softening stiffened muscles of the neck, back and waist, promoting blood circulation and preventing excessive perspiration due to the warm seat by means of a good airing function of the seat.
While a conventional bed pad, which is generally made of wool, synthetic fibre or cotton textile and placed between the bed sheet and the mattress of a bed, may be good for an easy and comfortable sleep, it does not have any therapeutic effects similar to those of finger pressure therapy of promoting blood circulation and curing kinks nor effects of keeping its temperature and humidity to a level which is required to ensure an easy and comfortable sleep.
Differently stated, conventional cushions and other cushionlike items are mostly soft cushions and do not have therapeutic effects of physically keeping user's posture in good position and promoting blood circulation of his or her body that hard cushions can claim they possess.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a bed pad, an automobile seat pad, a pillow or a similar cushionlike item having the effects of promoting blood circulation, curing kinks and other sore muscles similar to those of spot or finger pressure therapy and holding the user's posture in a correct position.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a bed pad, an automobile seat pad, a pillow or a similar cushionlike item which contains short cylindrical stuffing elements having an improved airing function by increasing space among them without forming grooves on the outer peripheral surface of the cylindrical elements.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a cushionlike item which is hard and rigid enough to keep itself in a form adapted to hold the head (or the waist) of the user and at the same time is soft and flexible enough to adjust its height to ensure user's comfort when used as a pillow by providing composite stuffing elements having a high coefficient of friction between one another.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a bed pad, an automobile seat pad, a pillow or a similar cushionlike item with stuffing of hollow spherical elements of synthetic resin arranged in a plurality of vertical and horizontal rows in order to provide a good airing function and generate therapeutic effects similar to those of finger pressure therapy in promoting blood circulation.